When a body is discovered in the basement of a building that is being demolished the police are called in. Investigators DCI Cassie Stuart and DS Sunil 'Sunny' Khan are initially unsure if the case is worth investigating as they have no idea how old the body is and no obvious way of identifying it. The only clue is a rusting car key
amazingly this leads to the car which leads to the identity of the victim and a book containing a list of names. The body belonged to a young black man who went missing in the seventies and the names belong to a variety of people; all of whose lives are about to be thrown into turmoil along with the lives of those around them.
These include an Anglican priest who'd had a relationship with a fifteen year old girl, a woman who is now married to a black man but was a member of a racist group in the seventies, a man about to be given a peerage who was an enforcer for a London gang and a disabled man whose wife is suffering from dementia. Over the course of the series the police find possible motives for each of the person on the list and as they investigate dark secrets emerge; even those who are innocent of this crime have other long-held secrets which emerge; some of them will find redemption but some lives will be destroyed forever.
Murder mysteries are one of the staples of television; even ones involving cold cases are hardly new but 'Unforgotten' manages to bring something new to the genre. While there is the question of who killed the body in the basement that isn't the only thing of interest in fact the other secrets that emerge are just as interesting. Given that the original crime took place in the seventies it isn't surprising that much of the main cast in is quite a bit older than one finds in most programmes. The cast does a great job; Nicola Walker and Sanjeev Bhaskar impress as the two leading police officers, it was refreshing to have cops who just get on with the job rather than having their own personal issues. Those playing the suspects and their families were fine too; most notably Trevor Eve, as the ex-gangster and Tom Courtenay and Gemma Jones who played the disabled man and his senile wife although it seems unfair to only pick out a few as the cast was uniformly good. Overall I'd certainly recommend this to anybody who enjoys murder mysteries but wants something a little different.
These include an Anglican priest who'd had a relationship with a fifteen year old girl, a woman who is now married to a black man but was a member of a racist group in the seventies, a man about to be given a peerage who was an enforcer for a London gang and a disabled man whose wife is suffering from dementia. Over the course of the series the police find possible motives for each of the person on the list and as they investigate dark secrets emerge; even those who are innocent of this crime have other long-held secrets which emerge; some of them will find redemption but some lives will be destroyed forever.
Murder mysteries are one of the staples of television; even ones involving cold cases are hardly new but 'Unforgotten' manages to bring something new to the genre. While there is the question of who killed the body in the basement that isn't the only thing of interest in fact the other secrets that emerge are just as interesting. Given that the original crime took place in the seventies it isn't surprising that much of the main cast in is quite a bit older than one finds in most programmes. The cast does a great job; Nicola Walker and Sanjeev Bhaskar impress as the two leading police officers, it was refreshing to have cops who just get on with the job rather than having their own personal issues. Those playing the suspects and their families were fine too; most notably Trevor Eve, as the ex-gangster and Tom Courtenay and Gemma Jones who played the disabled man and his senile wife although it seems unfair to only pick out a few as the cast was uniformly good. Overall I'd certainly recommend this to anybody who enjoys murder mysteries but wants something a little different.